Women and the Democratization of the Middle East

Driving across town today I heard PBS’s To the Point discussion on women in the middle east. It is worth listening to.

Link
Audio Link

First Lady Laura Bush is just back from her good-will tour of the Middle East. Along with touting education in her speeches in Jordan, Israel and Egypt, she emphasized the importance of women’s roles in any democracy. In Afghanistan, women comprised 40% of the voters in the most recent elections. Just last week, women in Kuwait were granted the right to vote. Yet while many women in the Middle East are starting their own businesses, millions of others are seriously disadvantaged in education, healthcare and the justice system. Life is an often violent hardship. Guest host Diana Nyad speaks with social anthropologists, women’s advocates, activists, and a State Department coordinator who accompanied Mrs. Bush on her recent trip about democratization of the Middle East and the daily struggle for women there.

This entry was posted in Afghan Women on by .

About Kevin

Kevin Sudeith is an artist and the creator and curator of the war rug collection seen on warrug.com. Beginning as (and remaining) a collector, he began selling war rugs to learn as much as possible about the rugs. Later he sold what he calls "regular rugs" to better study rugs and their historical origins. Sudeith learned how war rugs related to traditional Afghan tribal and workshop rugs as well as the broader Turkmen and Persian rug traditions.